Door operating mechanism



Feb. 1941- R J. PARSONS ETAL 2,230,783

DOOR OPERATING MECHANISM Filed Dec. 27, 1938 i mm Patented Feb. 4, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE noon OPERATING MECHANISM Application December 27, 1938, Serial No. 247,898

1 Claim.

This invention relates to closure operators, especially to door operating mechanism, and more particularly to a mechanism for operating the door of a vehicle, such as a street car or a bus.

A known type of door for such vehicles of the class in which a passenger entrance closed by the door is usually approached by one or more steps confined within the side of the vehicle, comprises a leaf or leaves of the door carried upon an arm which swings about an upright axis in such a manner that the door leaf is moved bodily from a closed position in which the door is substantially parallel with the side of the vehicle, to an open position in which the door stands at an angle, usually at right angles, to the side of the car, the door extending inwardly from the car side.

When a vehicle of this character is filled to capacity, or whenever passengers crowd the platform, there is considerable difficulty ineffecting such a transposition of the door from closed to open position and vice versa Without interference with one or more of those passengers who stand near the steps, and various expedients have been tried to avoid such interference, but not with entirely satisfactory results, for various reasons, among which may be noted particularly the inadequacy of existing means to cause the leading edge of the door to move in such a path that it at no time projects in an undesirable direction into the space occupied by passengers.

Under such conditions, an object of the present invention is to provide, in place of the inadequate existing door-operating mechanisms, an improved form of door operator by which the desired transposition of the door, in either the opening movement or the closing movement thereof, is eifected rapidly and steadily, so that the leading edge at no time so projects within the sides of the vehicle as to interfere with passengers or so as to be itself prevented by the presence of passengers from working properly.

In pursuance of the above general object, a further object is to provide a member associated with the door frame, and acting positively in cooperation with a complemental member carried by the door adjacent to its pivot, so as to cause the requisite turning movement of the door around its pivot by translation of a geared interaction of said members into a rotative moment exerted upon the door as it is moved bodily in preferably conventional fashion by a suitable motor under the control of the motorman or some other car guard.

Another object is to provide a sturdy flexible actuating element for the above purpose which preferably takes the form of a sprocket chain attached to a non-rotating sprocket Wheel segment which is mounted in fixed position coaxially with respect to upright axis around which oscillates the arm upon'which the door is pivoted, the sprocket chain or other flexible member having a loop which is engaged with a sprocket wheel or pulley on the door, surrounding the door pivot so that when the arm is swung to move the door bodily, the sprocket chain serves as a flexible track within which the door sprocket wheel runs, causing the door to turn in the desired manner.

Other objects and features of the invention will appear as the description of the particular physical embodiment selected to illustrate the invention progresses.

In the several views included in the drawing, like characters of reference have been applied to corresponding parts throughout the drawing, in which:

Figure l is a View in horizontal section, partly inplan, illustrating a car door operating mechanism in the construction of which the present invention has been embodied, the door being shown in somewhat diagrammatic fashion in its closed position, shown in full lines, and also in its open position, shown in dash-dot lines; Fig. 2 is a fragmentary detail view in vertical section of the same parts, with the door shown in elevation in its closed position, the related parts of the doorway and door operating mechanism being shown in their appropriate relative positions; Fig.3 is a fragmentary detail View similar to Fig. 1, but showing the door and associated door-operating mechanism in a partially open position of the door.

In a particular physical embodiment of the invention selected for illustration and description, the part designated generally by the reference character II is a doorway, forming part of the body structure of an electric street-railway car, and including an overhead lintel plate [2 which serves as a base for a suitable motor, not shown, but which may be desirably of a known fluidpressure type, adapted to cause oscillative rotation of a vertical door-shaft l3 around an upright axis,- thereby rocking an arm M to and fro through an arc of substantially 90 degrees, the arm being fixed to the shaft as by a pin l5, only so much of the above parts being shown as is necessary-to permit a proper understanding of the invention.

Part of a door is shown, in outline, comprising, preferably, complemental leaves It, ll, of which only the leaf I6 is illustrated in detail, it being understood that if a pair of leaves be provided, the leaf I! may be symmetrical with IS in all essential particulars, and similarly operated, so that only the leaf it will be described, with the associated mechanism for operating it, to permit complete understanding of the invention.

Each leaf, as I3, is suitably mounted pivotally on its arm M, as by a pivot post H3, in the instance illustrated, provided with attaching wings I9 bolted or riveted to the door l6 as indicated in Fig. 2, the pivot post extending upward through suitable bearings 23 in the free end of the arm I4, above which it is provided with a sprocket gear 2|, by which the post and door are held in dependent relation upon the arm, and by means of.

which gear the door can be rotated axis of pivot post I8.

In pursuance of the invention, in the embodiment illustrated, the turning movement of the door I6 is effected by the coaction of sprocket wheel 2| with the loop 22 of a sprocket chain 23 which is free to swing with the sprocket wheel 2|, post l8 and door 3, as the transposition of the latter bodily from the full-line closed posiaround the tion to the dash-dot open position is effected by oscillation of shaft i3 and arm M in one direction or the other, this being effected in conventional manner, as through a pinion 9, fast on shaft I3, the pinion meshing with any suitable gearing actuated by a known form of motor (not shown) which may be mounted on the base plate l2.

The plate l2 serves also as a support for a segmental sprocket gear member 24, which may desirably be formed integrally with a boss 26 of a fitting 21 mounted upon plate l2 and having an upper boss 28 in which is journalled the upper end of the door shaft l3. A boss 25 extends upward from the arm Hi within the boss 26 and around the shaft I3. The segmental gear 24 serves as a track engaged flexibly by the end portions 29, 30 of the chain 25.

The chain is shown as fastened to the periphery of the sprocket 24, as by screws 3|, so that the sprocket chain has no capacity for longitudinal movement, and when the shaft l3 turns the arm l4 and swingsthe door around from its closed, full-line position to its dash-dot position, both shown in Fig. 1, the sprocket 2| upon the door post l8 runs within the loop 22 of sprocket chain 23, with the result that the door is turned through about degrees from its closed position parallel with the door aperture to a position which in practice is substantially parallel with the end wall W of a car, for example a wall between the passenger compartment and a vestibule.

In the course of such transposition, the door is turned serially through successive positions, of which one is illustrated in Fig. 3, the leading edge 32 of the door being swung out of the plane of the doorway, while the trailing end 33 remains approximately in that plane throughout the transposition of the door.

It will be understood that the displacement of the leading edge 32 from said doorway starts rapidly, then proceeds with less rapidity, then speeds up again and eventually slows down to zero as the complete angular change is realized, and this mode of operation is desirable, as the initial movement of the door is adapted to attract the attention of passengers who are thus warned to avoid interference With movement of the, door.

Provision is made of means to make compact and to insure a snug engagement of the chain 23 with its cooperating sprocket wheels 2| and 24,

and for this purpose an idler sprocket wheel 34 is illustrated, mounted on a stud 35 carried by the arm I4. A coupling sleeve 36 is also provided, to adjust the length of the chain without disturbing the screws 3| by which its ends are secured to sprocket wheel segment 24.

From the foregoing it will be seen that in the operation of the device, the door I6 is so turned upon its pivot l8 during transposition of the door bodily from its full-line closed position to its open position that the swinging departure of the leading edge 32 from the doorway occurs at a region of the doorway adjacent to the end wall W of the car within the vestibule, where such movement is least likely to disturb the passengers in the vicinity of the doorway, so that this initial turning movement of the door may be utilized with safety to advance the edge 32 as rapidly as possible along the wall W.

Then, when the arm has swung around past the position shown in Fig. 3, the edge 32 may be advanced in an edgewise direction with greater safetythan is usual with door-openers of this general class, by reason of the fact that the door edge will move relatively slowly in its edgewise direction, owing to the above described organization of the elements so that the pivot axis l8 then swings in toward the wall W rather than away from the plane of the doorway.

Applicant desires to have it understood that whereas the member 23 has been illustrated as a chain or sprocket chain and the member 2| as a sprocket wheel and the member 25 has been called a sprocket wheel although it has not been illustrated with any teeth therein and although member 34 has been illustrated and described as a sprocket wheel, it is to be understood that these several parts are merely illustrative and that the particular construction shown for illustration and the particular terms used as descriptive of the several parts is not intended to exclude the use of a plain ribbon in place of the so-called sprocket chain 23 or the use of a plain disc in the place of the sprocket wheel 2| or the use of a plain disc in place of the sprocket wheel 34 or the use of a toothed sprocket wheel 24 as these several parts enumerated as well as those illustrated and described are all substitutes one for the other insofar as applicants invention is concerned and that the terminology used is intended to imply and include both the form illustrated and the form which may be used as a substitute therefor.

Although we have particularly described one particular physical embodiment of our invention and explained the operation, construction and principle thereof, nevertheless, we desire to have it understood that the form selected is merely illustrative, but does not exhaust the possible physical embodiments of the idea of means underlying our invention.

What we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is:

A door operator unit of the class described, adapted to operate in conjunction with a door, a doorway having a lintel or overhead plate and a motor mounted on said plate, also with a door shaft journalled in a bearing carried by said plate and oscillatable about an upright axis adjacent to one side of the doorway; said unit comprising an arm fixed upon said shaft and having at its free end a pivot means to support a doorleaf in position to close said doorway, and also adapted to carry said leaf bodily around through an arcuate path of about 90 degrees; and means to rotate said door relatively to the plane of the doorway concurrently with said transposition bodily, said door-rotating means being characterized by a chain formed into a loop extending alongside of said arm, a sprocket wheel fixed upon said door pivot and engaged with said loop, the chain having two stretches extending toward the axis of said door-shaft and anchored at a region eccentric to said shaft, and a segmental sprocket wheel part mounted upon said platebearing coaxially with respect to said shaft, said two ends of the sprocket chain being anchored to opposite sides of the circumference of said segmental sprocket wheel part, so that when said arm is swung by rotation of said shaft said pivotsprocket wheel will run along said chain, within the loop thereof and will be rotated, thereby turning the door relatively to the plane of the doorway, an adjustable coupling interposed in said sprocket chain and a further sprocket wheel carried by said arm and cooperating with said chain to maintain said chain in snug engagement with said pivot sprocket wheel.

ROBERT J. PARSONS. FREDERICK KUNST VAN ALMELO. 

